


Clockwork

by Notebooknote



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-20
Updated: 2013-09-20
Packaged: 2017-12-27 02:57:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/973496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Notebooknote/pseuds/Notebooknote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had made it a point to ignore its presence. Now he was staring at the damn thing and it was staring back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clockwork

At first, whenever he came to visit, he avoided the entire living room. He'd skirt around through the kitchen, always taking the back door. He would ignore the people sitting there, the doorway, but mostly, the thing in the corner, covered in a layer of dust. It started out as a precaution to preserve what little of his soul he had left, but soon it was just a habit. He had a path to follow and he followed it.

His mother worried. She'd tried to call him to sit with her, but he would pretend to not hear her, blaming the curse from the previous year when she came to address his deaf ear. Then, he would stop talking and hide away because it would remind him that that was not the worst thing to have lost.

His father worried. He'd make less of an effort, but still he would try to get him to just come through the front door. He wasn't about to break his cycle now that it was in place. He boarded up the front door in his mind, plastered the entire room away.

His sister understood. She was worried, too, of course, and his parents understood, but she knew what it was like to lose her other half, if only for a moment. She knew that while everyone else averted their eyes, he would erase it from existence. While she lived at home, she watched over him. That's why she was the first to notice the obvious rift in routine.

He had come home from the shop one night, riddled with nightmares. He sat in the kitchen staring at the doorway, as if waiting for someone to walk through. The next morning, she found him there, seemingly having not moved. His parents came next and he shifted his gaze to look at them, act like everything was fine. She noticed, however, the side glances towards the living room.

After his father left for work, as his mother began to magic her way through the chores, as his sister cracked open a book, he stood. Instead of walking to the stairwell, he moved past her chair and right to the living room. He ignored her movements as she broke away from her book, staring incredulously at her brother, following him into the other room.

He stopped in front of the very thing he had been avoiding for so long. He was so fixated on it, he didn't notice her hand on his shoulder. He didn't notice their mother looking in, breaking concentration so that the pot in the sink fell, smashing hard on the bottom. He was there long enough for his father to come home and join the impromptu vigil they were now holding. There were tears in everyone's eyes as they stood.

He was staring at it. It was staring back. Nine hands pointing in several directions. Eight hands, moving occasionally. One hand, still and static, never to move again.

**Author's Note:**

> I hardly ever write for anything besides Band of Brothers. I say hardly, but I really mean that this is only the third non-BoB fic (and the second one was a crossover HP with BoB).
> 
> I hope this came out well. 
> 
> I also hope that this hasn't been done before. If it has and you know the source, please leave me a message or comment. I just thought of it now because of recent personal events.
> 
> This world isn't mine, it's hers. I'm just borrowing some things.


End file.
